In yesterday’s Advisor, attorney Jonathan Segal offered cogent tips on documenting discipline. Today we’ll review his tips on final warnings and accommodations, plus a new training program for your supervisors and managers.
Segal is a partner with the Wolf Block law firm in Philadelphia. His tips appeared in our sister publication HR Manager’s Legal Reporter.
Delivering a Final Warning
For the final warning, Segal says, state specifically, “This is your final warning.” Be very clear. This is important in three ways:
1. It forces the employee to focus on the severity of the situation.
2. It may encourage the employee to look for another job.
3. It demonstrates your attention to “due process.”
Restate the performance problems in detail and be sure that you require improvement that clearly meets three standards:
- Immediate
- Significant
- Sustained
If you don’t say “immediate,” employees will say, “You didn’t give enough time, and you didn’t make clear how soon I had to comply.”
If you don’t say “significant,” they will point to 2 percent improvement and say, “I’ve improved.”
And if you don’t say “sustained,” they will say, “I did improve—for 3 days.”
Yes, you do have time to train managers and supervisors with BLR’s 10-Minute HR Trainer. Try it at no cost or risk. Read more.
Come to HR
Train your supervisors to come to HR in certain circumstances, says Segal. For example, an employee about to get a final warning says to the manager, “I have a stress disorder. I have to have a job that has no stress.”
“Nice job if you can get it,” says the manager, “But sorry, Charlie, there’s no such job here.”
Now there’s trouble. When an employee raises a physical or emotional problem, says Segal, you don’t want the supervisor saying yes or no without going through the ADA-mandated interactive dialog. So make it part of every supervisor’s training that he or she consult with HR if an employee:
- Discloses a physical or emotional condition in response to discipline
- Requests accommodation or leave of absence (at any time).
The supervisor’s response in all these cases can be simply, “Thanks for mentioning this; I’ll talk to HR.”
How about your supervisors and managers? Are they ready to handle tricky discipline issues? Most supervisors—especially those who are new to the job—don’t know how to handle such situations.
It’s not their fault—you didn’t hire them for their HR knowledge—and you can’t expect them to act appropriately right out of the box. But you can train them to do it.
Train your line managers with BLR’s 10-Minute HR Trainer. There won’t be time for classroom boredom. Try it free. Read more.
To train supervisors and managers effectively, you need a program that’s easy for you to deliver and that requires little time out of busy schedules. Also, if you’re like most companies in these tight budget days, you need a program that’s reasonable in cost.
We asked our editors what they recommend for training supervisors in a minimum amount of time with maximum effect. They came back with BLR’s unique 10-Minute HR Trainer.
As its name implies, it trains managers and supervisors in critical HR skills in as little as 10 minutes for each topic.
10-Minute HR Trainer offers these features:
—Trains in 50 key HR topics, including manager and supervisor responsibilities under all major employment laws and how to legally carry out managerial actions from hiring to termination. See a complete list of topics.
—Uses the same teaching sequence master teachers use. Every training unit includes an overview, bullet points on key lessons, a quiz, and a handout to reinforce the lesson later.
—Completely prewritten and self-contained. Each unit comes as a set of reproducible documents. Just make copies or turn them into overheads, and you’re done. Take a look at a sample lesson.
—Updated continually. As laws change, your training needs do as well. 10-Minute HR Trainer provides new lessons and updated information every 90 days, along with a monthly Training Forum newsletter, for as long as you are in the program.
—Works fast. Each session is so focused that there’s not a second’s waste of time. Your managers are in and out almost before they can look at the clock. Yet they remember small details even months later.
Evaluate It at No Cost for 30 Days
We’ve arranged to make 10-Minute HR Trainer available to our readers for a 30-day, in-office, no-cost trial. Review it at your own pace and try some lessons with your colleagues. If it’s not for you, return it at our expense. Go here and we’ll set things up.
Download list of training topics
Download sample lesson
Download Training Forum Newsletter